Elevation Polish Opal

Elevation Polish Opal

This lovely polish isn't one you can buy (at least not right now), but I do want to share it! It's a prototype of a custom polish Lulu (Elevation Polish) was working on when I got into an online chat with her, and she very kindly sent me a bottle to try out! The polish is a mixture of grey, gunmetal and iridescent glitters in a white jelly base. There's quite a lot of glitter in the polish, so I used one coat of plain white as a base so I could avoid VNL without building up too much glitter on my nails. I absolutely love the effect - I hope Lulu brings this into production one day!

Elevation Polish Opal

You can buy Lulu's polishes from her website Elevation Polish and keep up to date with new releases and other news on her BLOG too.

And finally, just for fun, after I'd worn this mani for several days, I added a coat of Butter London Disco Biscuit! Disco Biscuit is very sheer, and lends itself perfectly to jelly sandwiches so I thought it might work well as a colour glaze too. I love the result!

Elevation Polish Opal with Butter London Disco Biscuit

Elevation Polish Opal was a gift from the maker;  Butter London Disco Biscuit is a core BL colour and is readily available - I purchased my bottle from my local Boots.

Dior Mango, Elevation Daisen and Essie Action!

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

This blog needs some colour! My last few posts have all been about neutral polishes, so time for a change...........Dior Mango is a polish I've been lusting after for a while. And whilst it didn't disappoint in the least, once it was on my nails I wanted to add something a bit extra to make it more special!

Here's Dior Mango on it's own. It's a wonderful colour, and the formula and application are perfect. Two coats with Seche Vite quick drying top coat:

Dior Mango

I wore Mango alone for a couple of days, then I added a coat of Elevation Daisen, which is a lovely glitter topper with circular glitter in various sizes and shades of pink, plus iridescent microglitter in the background. In my last mani with Daisen I used a contrasting background, Rescue Beauty Lounge Abiquiu, but this time I was inspired by this gorgeous mani by Sminkan and I wanted to pair pink circle glitter with orange. I wanted to create a sandwich / jelly effect rather than full on bling, but Dior Mango is too dense for that, so I used a thin coat of Essie Action, which is a bright orange neon and worked perfectly. Essie Action also turned up the brightness of the orange a few notches, which I like! 

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

And a couple of macros to show the detail in the glitter:

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

I didn't purposely place the little glitter on top of the big one on my index finger, but I love how it turned out! And a fuzzy abstract pic to finish with.....

Dior Mango with Elevation Daisen and Essie Action 

I'd been lemming Dior Mango since I first saw swatches when it was released earlier this year, and after several months of stalking the Dior counters without success, I asked a friend in the US to order it from Dior Boutique for me. I got my Elevation Daisen in a swap but it's still a current Elevation colour and Lulu does keep restocking it. You can buy Elevation polishes at Lulu's website http://elevationpolish.bigcartel.com/ and she posts about restocks, new colours etc in her blog http://lovebrownnailpolish.wordpress.com/category/elevation-polish/. Llarowe recently started selling a few Elevation polishes too! Essie Action is readily available; I can't actually remember where I bought mine. I'm not sure I'd really recommend Essie Action though, as the pigment in my bottle settled quite badly and all got stuck up in the brush - it needs a lot of shaking to make it usable. I've seen other comments about this happening too, so I don't think I just got a bad bottle or I've stored it badly.

Sinful Colors Rise & Shine / Elevation Polish Marmolada

Elevation Polish Marmolada over Sinful Colors Rise & Shine

Elevation Polish Marmolada is a soft aqua-grey jelly with silver, blue and lilac circular glitter in various sizes.
Most of the swatches I've seen have been over blue, grey or just alone........... for example my friend Ida wore it over OPI What's with the Cattitude, Sheila at Pointless Cafe wore it over Nails Inc Thames and Sminkan just wore it alone....... so I decided I'd be a bit different and wear it over a bright green!

The green I chose was Sinful Colors Rise & Shine; Sinful Colors polishes have just recently become available in the UK (at Boots) and this was one of the colours that jumped of the shelf at me. It's a bright teal-emerald and in certain lights has a light bluish shimmer. I love this colour - I wore it for several days before putting on Marmolda and even got real-life compliments on it - a rare thing in this part of the world!

 Sinful Colors Rise & Shine

I used two coats of Sinful Rise & Shine and a coat of Seche Vite quick drying top coat for this mani. Application was very easy - way better than I'd expect for the price! I think I'm probably a Sinful Colours convert after wearing this one (just as well as I got a three for two deal)! I've read that Rise & Shine can stain on some people, but I didn't have any problems with staining. I used my usual 'base coat', Sally Hansen Maximum Growth. This is sold more as a strengthening treatment than a base coat; I don't believe for a moment it makes my nails (or anybody else's) grow any faster but it dries quickly to a glossy finish I like and find very easy to apply my polishes over. Not sure if this specifically avoided the polish staining my nails, but if you get this colour I'd definitely recommend using some sort of base coat. In fact I'm always wary of greens and teals staining!

Anyway, on to the glitter! Here's a bottle shot of Elevation Polish Marmolada. It has silver, aqua and lilac circular glitters of various sizes. 

Elevation Polish Marmolada over Sinful Colors Rise & Shine

I just added one coat of Marmolada over my Rise & Shine. The application was perfect and totally streak free. Finished off with another coat of Seche Vite, I carried on wearing this mani until the growth around my cuticles was too much!

I purchased Sinful Colors Rise & Shine from my local Boots and Elevation Marmolada direct from Lulu at her Elevation Polish website. Lulu posts updates about restocks etc on her blog.

Elevation Polish Haba Xueshan over B.Complete Piglet

Elevation Polish Haba Xueshan over B.Complete Piglet

Haba Xueshan is a mountain in Yunnan, China, and the name in translation means 'Snow Mountain'. It's a black and white glitter with lovely pale aqua glitter circles - I could imagine being on top of a snowy mountain against a bright blue sky looking at these colours!

I love black and white glitter, and they are so easy to use - they'll pair with just about anything. This is a little more difficult though, with the aqua in there, so I referred to my colour wheel for help. The complementary colour to aqua (blue-green) is orange-red; lighter versions of orange red are fleshy, nude tones and draker versions are brown. I think this polish would look great over orange or brown, but I really wanted a delicate, pastel look - and I had a great looking new nude I wanted to try out, so for this mani I went with B.Comlete Piglet as my base.

B. is a new range from Superdrug which launched a couple of months ago. Here's a Cosmetics Business article about the launch of this brand in February 2013. The polishes were on a 3 for 2 promotion in my local Superdrug this week, and there were a few interesting colours, so I couldn't resist! Here's Piglet on it's own:

B.Complete Piglet

In strong light it's very delicate peachy nude. This is three coats with Seche Vite topcoat - as you can see it applies quite evenly and there are no issues with streaking. In softer light the polish looks a warmer colour:

B.Complete Piglet

Not sure why my middle finger nail looks a bit darker here; I must have applied the polish more thickly, but this isn't noticeable in real life. Although I like the colour, I do have a couple of quibbles with the polish:

First, the brush is enormous! I like a bigger brush, such as OPI and some of the Bourjois ranges, but this is TOO big. If you're not careful, it's hard to get in back in the neck of the bottle without splaying the bristles and it makes application a bit messy - you certainly need to do a Megan Chair Clean-up to get a smart looking mani with this.

Second, and this very much a personal gripe of mine, the polish is made in China. I didn't realise this until I got it home and read the small print on the bottle. I have no issue with polishes made in other parts of the world, and I love to try out exotic brands from other countries............when they are sold as such. But this is a UK brand, offshoring production to increase their profits. Barry M and Boots can make polish in the UK and sell it at a similar price, and other brands sold in the UK such as Bourjois, Max Factor and the Tesco own brands are made in France - so it's not as if polish can't be made in this part of the world.

OK - rant over, I like the colour and after a day I applied a coat of Elevation Polish Haba Xueshan:

Elevation Polish Haba Xueshan over B.Complete Piglet

I love how the colours work together and how delicate the whole thing looks! Here are a couple of closer pictures to show the detail in the glitter

Elevation Polish Haba Xueshan over B.Complete Piglet

I used a coat of Gelous and a final coat of Seche Vite to smooth everything out. Elevation Haba Xueshan isn't too dense a glitter, and the base is quite jelly-like, so it's easy to apply and doesn't dry gritty.

Elevation Polish Haba Xueshan over B.Complete Piglet

I purchased B.Complete Piglet from Superdrug, and Elevation Haba Xueshan directly from the  Elevation Polish Website. At the time of writing, Haba Xueshan is sold out, but Lulu restocks the polishes regularly, usually twice a month.

Elevation Polish Huangshan

<a href="http://www.bloglovin.com/blog/5144053/?claim=wayrbcddepb"></a>

Elevation Polish Huangshan

This is a stunning and really unusual glitter. It's a mix of matte and shiny bright yellow glitters in a variety of sizes and shapes (including circles) and iridescent yellow microglitter. I've seen a few great swatches with Elevation Polish Huangshan over lighter colours, but for my first mani with it I really wanted to see how it looked over a dark base.

Here are a couple of front-on pictures in different lights to show the overall effect:

Elevation Polish Huangshan

The polish I chose to pair it with is Make-Up by Barbara Daly Storm. This is a very dark grey jelly - or possibly even a crelly (somewhere between a cream and a jelly). I used one coat of Storm, one coat of Huangshan, followed by another coat of Storm and a final coat of Huangshan. I used a coat of Gelous followed by a coat of Seche Vite to smooth the everything out. The dark grey jelly over the yellow glitters turns them green and teal and gives the whole mani quite a bit of depth. You can see this better in the angled and close up shots:

Elevation Polish Huangshan

I purchased Huangshan directly from the Elevation Polish Website. Make-Up by Barbara Daly is a Tesco own brand polish, and this is a limited edition colour from a few years ago. However, a black jelly such as Essie Liquorice would give a similar effect. I'd like to try Huangshan with a purple jelly such as Verity Deep Violet, as well as over a lighter colour :)

Elevation Polish The Arches with Lynnderella Thank Blue and Lacquistry Autumn Flurries

Elevation Polish The Arches with Lynnderella Thank Blue

I was in a colour-nerdy mood today, so I picked a favourite polish as a base then used my colour wheel to find something interesting to layer over it.

Elevation Polish The Arches is a lovely rusty red *crelly* sort of a polish. I don't know if crelly is a real word, but the polish is somewhere between a cream and a jelly, so there you go. This was the first Elevation Polish I bought and I've been hooked ever since. I chose the complimentary colour of The Arches to pair it with - blue-green. I was considering using NailVenturous Floam, but then Thank Blue caught my eye and just seemed a perfect companion. I wanted to create a bit of extra depth and texture in the finished mani so I included a layer of Lacquistry Autumn Flurries. Autumn Flurries is a polish I want to love, but I can't. I think I have some sort of a problem with red glitter, I'm never happy with them, whatever I do. But well down in the mix like this, Autumn Flurries adds a bit of interest.

I didn't take stage by stage pictures of this mani as, to be honest, none of the stages looked particularly attractive until I put on the Gelous, and then it all came together as a whole. I did one coat of The Arches - at one coat this is thin and streaky - and put a coat of Autumn Flurries over that. Autumn Flurries is a lot of reddish microglitter in a tinted red base with a few larger light coppery glitters. Then a coat of Thank Blue, quite thick as I wanted to get plenty of blue glitter onto my nails, followed by a further coat of The Arches. The Arches is sheer enough to let the blue glitters show through, but tones the colour of the glitters down quite a lot, so some of them look shades of darker blue and even green. Even though Autumn Flurries is two coats down, the microglitters twinkle through. To finish off the colours, I dabbed just a few of the glitters from Thank Blue on each nail, taking care not to get anywhere near full coverage. I wanted these last glitters to highlight, rather than drown, what I'd already done. Then I added a coat of Gelous and a coat of SV to make it all smooth and shiny.

More pictures........ first of all in bright light, near a window:

Elevation Polish The Arches with Lynnderella Thank Blue

These show the squishiness of Elevation Polish The Arches and the colours of the glitter quite true to life. You can also see the microglitter from Autumn Flurries twinkling away in the background.

Some of the glitter in Lynnderella Thank Blue is holographic, which adds the range of colour reflections. I've tried to capture this in this picture in rather softer light.

Elevation Polish The Arches with Lynnderella Thank Blue

I purchased Elevation Polish The Arches direct from the creator, Lulu, at her Elevation Polish Shop. The Arches is not currently in stock, but Lulu keeps a list of polishes and their availability on her website. I purchased Lynnderella Thank Blue about a year ago, when the process for buying Lynnderella polishes was different to what it is now. If you are in the US, you can buy from Lynn on e-bay. I understand that Norway Nails are now the exclusive retailer of Lynnderella Polishes in Europe.  Lynn's blog has swatches of all her collections (Thank Blue is from the Funny Money collection) over various bases and more information about purchasing. I got my bottle of Lacquistry Autumn Flurries in a swap a while ago - Lacquistry has an Etsy Shop but this was one of her earliest polishes and I don't think is still being made.

OPI Lights of Emerald City - Swatch and review

I'm not sure if I like this polish or not. I love square glitter, and I love matt white glitter, and I love iridescent glitter - so all the parts are there for me ~ I'm just not sure about how this fits together as a whole.

Most of the swatches I've seem have been over light pinks, in particular OPI I Theodora You, the baby pink from the OPI Oz Collection. The PolishAholic did her swatch of Lights of Emerald City over this one - take a look here the polishaholic OPI-Disney Oz The Great And Powerful Collection Swatches & Review. So I choose to swatch over a couple of darker colours - Elevation Polish Colline du Charf and Essie Power Clutch. I took my pictures in the low light of late afternoon to try capture the sparkle of the iridescent glitter.

Here is Lights of Emerald City over Colline du Charf

OPI Lights of Emerald City over Elevation Polish Colline du Charf

It looks OK from a distance I guess, and I love how the smaller glitters glow and twinkle. My problems are with the white glitters - maybe they are bit too big? - but whatever, I think they make the polish look a bit tacky. And there are some practical issues with them; because they are big, and flat, they don't lie well on my nails, they stick out a bit and are kinda funny looking, like how post-it notes don't lie flat on what you stick them to! I thought this was because my nails have a very high c-curve, but when I looked carefully at the Swatchaholic's pics again, it looks the same on her nails. And there's a quality problem with these white glitters too - they haven't cut properly so a lot of them have got a little extra tag on the corner - ugh!

Here it is over Power Clutch:

OPI Lights of Emerald City over Essie Power Clutch

A couple of blurry ones for fun to show the rainbows in the iridescent glitter:

OPI Lights of Emerald City over Essie Power Clutch

And a macro (well the best I can do for a macro with my little camera so you can see properly the tags on the white glitters and how they don't lie flat to the nail).

OPI Lights of Emerald City over Essie Power Clutch

Both the colours I used as bases for these swatches are beautiful in their own right so it's only fair to show them on their own! Here's Elevation Polish Colline du Charf, this is a difficult colour to describe but it's a sort of light dusty taupe with a lavender tinge.

Elevation Polish Colline du Charf

It has a slightly jelly finish, I took the pics above without topcoat just before I put the OPI on. This is two coats.

Essie Power Clutch is a classic and I love it. If it's not a staple in your collection, it should be! This is three coats with SV.

Essie Power Clutch

What do you think about OPI Lights of Emerald City - are the white glitters too big?

I purchased OPI Lights of Emerald City from a seller on Amazon.co.uk. Elevation Polish Colline du Charf is available directly from Lulu at her website here http://elevationpolish.bigcartel.com/product/colline-du-charf and Essie Power Clutch is readily available from shops and on-line stores.

I've also posted a review and pictures of OPI Lights of Emerald City with some light green polishes :)